My ramblings about all things technical

Tag Archives: IQT

I was again very fortunate to attend the UKVMUG today. I have been a supported of the London VMUG for a number of years although due to work commitments and billable work obviously winning out I haven’t managed to attend as many as I would like. For this year I was also able to attend my first vCurry which for those who don;t know is a curry (who would have guessed) and a typically British quiz night but with a technology slant to it.

vCurry

The vCurry was really great and was held inside the motorcycle museum in Solihull next to where the UKVMUG is. It was great to see many faces from the community and even some #vBrownbag crew in Rebecca Fitzhugh who I presented a session with today and Emad Younis . The quiz was really good fun with loads of amusing question like some of the below around some of the famous VMware faces and their unknown previous job (just one is true)

My table/team won which was nice and there were loads of good laughs during the evening followed by some drinks and chatting to people.

The UKVMUG

I arrived fairly early for registration and then chatted to a few old colleagues and some people from the community around IoT and my growing interest in the area especially with Dell Technologies having a play in the space.

The day started with a welcome from Simon Gallagher and then moved onto the keynote by VMware EMEA CTO Joe Baguley. As usual Joe’s keynote was really interesting and shows where the industry might be going and focused on edge computing which as I mentioned earlier fit right into what I am currently learning around Dell’s IQT offerings. I wrote about my perspectives around it a few months ago here if interested. Joe also covered the need for not just understanding IT like we do day to day but also OT now that these edge devices are in the domain of OT people who have been using very specialised and critical systems to do their day to day job.

Joe also covered how there is now becoming a need for not just the normal data centres but now micro and nano data centres

Next I went and chatted to a number of the sponsors to learn what they are offering and to see how their offerings might fit for my customers or for some how their offerings are a competitor to Dell EMC. I also chatted to the UKVMUG crew who are also the London VMUG crew. If you want to attend a UKVMUG or even better want to present then please do reach out as they have their next meeting very soon:

Next was mine and Rebecca’s session around “How failing the VCDX made me a better architect”. The session went really well and we had some good questions and discussions afterwards with a few people coming up and declaring they are aiming to submit and defend for VCDX. I’m planning to maybe do a vBrownbag for mine and Rebecca’s session so I don’t want to cover it here but one point from our session was something I mentioned in my VCDX passing posting around the videos I used to watch which had Eric Thomas speaking in them about how badly do you want it and about giving up after my first failure. The full piece of this speech I found fairly recently which is here and is something I watch often and I would highly recommend. I also finished his book this past week and again highly recommend it. This quote over my desk is one of my favourites of his

After my session I spoke to a few people about IoT pieces as well as VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware HCX and then made my way home to miss traffic. The day was really great and as always I really enjoyed presenting and certainly need to up my game and try present more at VMUG’s ,on the vBrownbag and hopefully Dell EMC world and VMworld next year

*Disclaimer* Whilst I am a Dell EMC employee this is my own take around the announcement and technologies whilst utilizing resources available to me as an employee, this posting has not been reviewed nor requested by my employers and whilst I plan to give as factual information as possible nothing mentioned below can be deemed fully verified.

As I promised during my first posting about the Dell IQT announcements I am planning to cover my own perspectives around the announcements and try share information about it as I learn it myself. For this second part I am planning to cover why you would choose Dell Technologies as your IoT solutions provider/partner.

Unlock the potential of the unconnected by bridging IT and OT

The value of IoT is at the intersection of IT (information technology) and OT (operational Technology). Most of the net new data coming from the 50 billion connected devices that analysts are predicting will be in operational environments and IT will need to work with OT to securely access this data and integrate it with existing IT data and systems to create value.

Working together, IT and OT organizations must join forces, using the strengths each has to offer.

IT must securely add computation, storage and secure connectivity closer to OT equipment and devices, including ruggedized equipment for harsher environments

OT must find ways to gather, analyze and move this data to where it delivers the highest business value whether that be the device, the fog or the cloud.

Dell has been unlocking human potential for over 30 years with their computing technologies – Their mission in IoT is to unlock potential of the unconnected by bridging IT and OT.

The idea that IT and OT will need to converge for IoT to be successful is pretty prevalent in the industry today but most companies will stop there. Dell has 30+ years of IT heritage and they have been focused on the tenant of security and manageability, but Dell has also been customising their technologies for OT environments for companies like Honeywell, Emerson, and Johnson Controls through their OEM business for over 15 years. Finally their best-in-breed partner program delivers vertical specific OT expertise.

Dell is also 100% focused on Industrial/Commercial IoT where they believe the real progress is being made.

The challenges and risks can seem overwhelming

Security & data governance: Exponential increase in connected devices introduces an exponential increase in security risk. This still continues to be the #1 concern for IoT deployments – that is why you want to work with a company with years of experience securing critical data on remote client devices back to the data center. 90% of all IT networks will have an IoT-based security breach

Confusion on use cases, ROI:Hype obscures real opportunities, causing confusion about use cases, outcomes and ROI, what are they trying to measure and what problem data do they need to collect and how to move forward.

loT Practical Approach

With the industry’s broadest IoT infrastructure portfolio together with Dell Technologies ecosystem of curated technology and services partners, they cut through the complexity and enable you to access everything you need to deploy an optimised IoT solution, and by working with these partners they provide proven use-case specific solution blueprints for a faster ROI.

Comprehensive standards-based portfolio:

– Provides choice and flexibility

– Speeds deployment through global scale, support and financing

Dell Technologies have successfully developed award-winning edge computing solutions to help customers securely access and analyse data in operational environments, complementing their trusted data center computing solutions. Now with the added assets from the EMC Federation, they are solidifying Dell’s IoT market leadership by providing choice and flexibility and helping you speed up your IoT deployments with a comprehensive infrastructure portfolio from the edge through the fog to the cloud.

Curated partner program:

– Reduces risk and complexity

– Delivers vertical expertise

– Provides implementation and support

Dell Technologies ecosystem of curated partners in their best-in-breed partner program, cuts through the complexity and enables you to access everything you need to deploy an optimised IoT solution. Their hardware and software technology partners and systems integration partners deliver the vertical expertise on top of the trusted Dell infrastructure offering.

Proven use-case specific solution blueprints:

– Accelerates ROI

– Optimizes implementation

A + B = C here! By leveraging their comprehensive portfolio and working with these partners they provide proven use-case specific solution blueprints for a faster ROI. Because Dell Technologies do the work to curate the best partners for your use case and validate the solution they can offer a reference architecture to work from which optimises your implementation.

Get to market faster with Dell’s curated partners

Dell Technologies have invested time and money to find these partners on your behalf.

Using Dell’s infrastructure foundation along with Dell’s partners speeds deployment by reducing risk and complexity – the Dell partner program allows enterprises to choose from the proven IoT solutions that match their needs